There are various prior-art elevator safety devices which can be used to create a temporary safety space at the end of an elevator shaft. The commonest arrangement for this purpose is to use mechanical stoppers arranged to stop the elevator car and prevent it from moving all the way to the end of the elevator shaft. In prior art, this is proposed to be implemented using e.g. at least one movable mechanical stopper attached to the elevator shaft and arranged to be moved into the path of a mechanical stopper attached to the elevator car. In this type of solutions, when the stoppers in the elevator shaft are in an activated state, the elevator car can only move until the aforesaid mutually aligned stoppers meet, preventing the elevator car from moving further. In this way, the movement of the elevator car can be restricted e.g. for as long as a serviceman is working on the top of the elevator car or on the bottom of the elevator shaft. Otherwise the serviceman would be liable to being squeezed between the elevator car and the end of the elevator shaft. In alternative solutions, a movable stopper is attached to the elevator car, from the top of which it can be activated by moving it to a position which, as seen in the direction of motion of the car, is aligned with an immovable stopper fixed in place in the elevator shaft. Prior art is described inter alia in patent publications EP1473264, EP1604934, EP1674416A1 and FR2795060A1.
One of the problems involved in prior-art solutions is that the stoppers have to be activated from a position in their vicinity. For this reason, the person activating the stoppers consequently has to be at a certain location in the elevator shaft. Moreover, the movable stoppers must be activated one by one. Especially in safety equipment solutions where expressly the stoppers in the elevator shaft are movable, it is difficult to activate the stoppers in a simple and fast manner because the stoppers are often placed at a large distance from each other. Thus, for example, in order to activate a safety device, the serviceman has had to get to the bottom floor, open the landing door with a service key and move the stopper in the elevator shaft pit manually to an activated position. To activate the upper safety device, the serviceman has had to get to the top of the elevator car in order to activate the stopper.